


no small gift

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [30]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25181848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt for beaujes: knowing?or, jester gives beau a gift.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 4
Kudos: 119





	no small gift

Jester folds a small clay statuette into a length of the yards and yards of green cloth she had bought and seeks her out early in the morning.

‘In the morning?’ Veth asks when they go over the plan one last time. She’s accompanying Jester until they find her and not a step further, at Jester’s insistence. ‘Are you _sure_ about this, Jester? I mean _really_ sure? I like Beau but you know how she gets in the mornings. Mean. The worst – grumpiest of all of us. Second worst,’ she says, changing her mind. ‘There’s still, you know, Yasha and her whole thing she does with the wings.’

‘I wonder if… Do you think she still does that? Obann is gone, maybe she got better!’

‘From…having bone wings.’ Veth screws her nose up pinched and tight as she considers that. It’s strange, getting used to Veth’s new face, but the fact that Veth wears it so well – the fact that she looks so _happy_ in it – means that Jester can’t help but love it. It’s fun, too, seeing Nott’s expressions on Veth. Or…Veth’s expressions that had been on Nott…back on Veth again. ‘Maybe the spa helped,’ Veth suggests. ‘Relaxation, nice calming music,’

‘Yeah yeah yeah! A clay _mask_ ,’

‘Rejuvenating oils, _all_ that shit.’

‘Yeah!’

‘Maybe it did help! We should ask.’

‘Totally. Unless,’ Jester narrows her eyes thoughtfully across at Veth. ‘You don’t think that’s too _personal_ or, like, _invasive_ , do you?’

‘Asking our friend whether her creepy bone-and-shadow wings that instilled a visceral wave of terror into anyone who saw them and were a sign of her connection to an awful demonic entity that mind-controlled her and has been trying to tear reality apart to summon some horrific creature from some other plane of existence have changed now that we killed him in a battle that very nearly killed all of us? No, I don’t think that’s invasive at all.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable or anything,’

‘No, of course not, she’s our friend,’ Veth agrees.

‘But when she told us she dreamed of them having feathers again…’ Jester clutches the little packet to her chest and sighs dreamily, eyelashes fluttering closed. ‘Oh Veth, they sounded _so_ beautiful. Do you think they looked like that when she was married?’

Veth’s face softens and she runs a finger over the small, somewhat bean-shaped heart tattooed on her finger. ‘You know, I don’t know.’

‘We should ask for _sure_ ,’ Jester says more firmly. ‘We should know more about her.’

‘Ooh - make her a nice dinner or something.’

Jester nods eagerly. ‘Yeah! Wine and dine her!’

‘Great idea! Get her _drunk_ and she’ll spill all her secrets!’

‘No- No, Veth. We’re _wooing_ the information from her.’

‘Oh. Hmm.’ Veth taps her chin. She’s silent for a moment as they come to the stairs and climb up toward the deck. An idea spills across her face in the same moment that morning light does, Jester opening the door ahead of her. Veth nods. ‘We may have to get Beau involved in this.’

‘What? Why?’

‘To woo her, of course.’

‘Oh, well, no, I don’t mean _woo_ her like _that_ – ’ Jester laughs, a quick little laugh, eyes fixed on anything but Veth, flicking from the whorl and knot of wood grain on deck to the sopping nets that lash crates in place, to the distant point of the bow of the ship. ‘Just in a _friend_ way,’ she insists, with that stilted laugh again. ‘Beau doesn’t have to – we don’t need Beau to do _that_ –‘

‘Heard that before,’ Beau calls down from her place seated cross-legged atop the cabin. She is sitting in her meditation pose but one eye is open, the other screwed shut against the morning sun. Bringing a hand up to shield her eyes, she squints down at the pair. ‘What do you want?’

_See_? Veth mouths to Jester, widening her eyes a fraction.

‘It’s fine,’ Jester whispers back.

‘Are you _sure_ you want me to leave?’

‘ _Veth_ ,’

‘Fine, _fine_.’ After a half-hearted glare up at Beau, Veth scuttles away back down the stairs.

‘No playing with the gunpowder unless Fjord gives the okay!’ Beau calls after her. ‘Veth! Hey, Veth! _No_ playing with the gunpowder.’ She gets no response, just the patter of feet on steps fading. Once the sound has gone entirely, Beau’s expression shifts to something far more welcoming and far more amused. ‘Morning, Jes. Coming up?’

Jester nods and sets about searching for something she can use as a step up. As she does, she asks, ‘Is this why Veth thinks you’re not a morning person? You sound so _grumpy_ when you talk to her.’

‘I’m not a morning person.’

Jester stops. Fixes her with a disbelieving look. ‘You’re always nice to _me_ in the mornings.’

‘That’s different.’

‘How come?’

Beau comes to the edge of the cabin, dangles her legs off the side. She waves for Jester to move back and, when she does, jumps down to the deck. She lands with barely a sound and close enough that Jester’s eyes have to shift to take in the entirety of Beau’s face and the expression on it.

She’s smiling. It feels like a really long time since Jester has seen her smile.

‘I like _you_ ,’ Beau tells her simply. ‘Veth? She can choke.’

‘Beau!’

Ignoring Jester’s scolding tone – or rather, it does a poor job of scolding, instead making Beau grin – Beau leans back against the wall of the cabin.

‘So, what don’t you need me for?’

‘Huh? Oh, that.’ Jester waves a hand. ‘Talking to Yasha. Veth suggested you could – it doesn’t – anyway, that’s not why I was looking for you. I came to give you this!’

A small frown had settled over Beau’s curious eyes and it only grows as Jester changes topics inelegantly. It grows extremely wary indeed as Jester holds the wrapped item out toward her.

‘I wrapped it!’

‘I can see that.’

‘With a ribbon, see?’

‘Yep, I see that. A bow and everything.’

‘Yeah!’ Jester waggles the small package enticingly, waggles her brows as well; her smile grows when Beau examines it for a long, long moment before finally taking it as she might one of Veth’s explosive bolts. With extreme trepidation. ‘Open it!’

‘I’m gonna be honest with you, Jes. I’m – is this – ’ Beau examines the package now that it is in her hands, turns it over, hefts it, gives it a sniff. ‘Is this gonna…' She peeks up at Jester, who gives her the _most_ innocent smile. 'Ah, fuck it.’ Beau passes it into one hand and, with the other, pulls at the ribbon holding the fabric closed. She tucks the ribbon into her pocket and, ever so slowly, ever so carefully – glancing up at Jester now and again as she does to see if Jester has shifted out of a certain range, a blast radius, if you will – she unfolds the green cloth from whatever the item is within.

‘So, okay, I know it isn’t _perfect_ by _any_ means but I only discovered clay as an artistic medium, like, a week ago – and oh my gosh, Beau, it is really, really fun but I think I know why. If I’m being totally honest with you I think my mama hid the fact that you can make stuff out of clay, y’know, because otherwise? Whoa ho ho, there would have been a _lot_ of teeny creepy little statues everywhere in the Chateau. Also, it’s _very_ messy to work with, I mean _whoa_. But this one is – I’ve had a _lot_ of models to examine over the last couple of days and I’m _pretty_ proud of how it turned out.’ Jester stops in her rambling to such in a much-needed breath. She looks at Beau, holding the palm-sized clay rat in her hand. Jester worries at her bottom lip for a moment before asking, ‘Do you like it?’

Beau’s eyes lift from the statue to Jester before dropping down to it again.

‘It took me a while to see what their little legs looked like because I didn’t want to _scare_ the rats, you know? But they move, like, super fast and – okay, also, I know we’re super cool heroes and really tough and all that now and I know you said that rats are smart and cute and actually pretty clean but I can _not_ deal with them, Beau, I mean _maybe_ if you had had it since it was a baby or something but the rats on this ship! Bo-wuh!’ Jester huffs. ‘They are not nice! Like, at all? And I asked Caduceus, yah? To bribe one into sitting still for me but it took the cheese he gave it and then it _bit him_ and he said it was okay and “that’s what rats do” or whatever but I think it got infected because he didn’t come near me all day and I really think he didn’t want me to see it get all swollen or whatever but he must have healed it this morning because he made a big show of his hand being totally fine and – ’

‘You made this? For me?’ Beau interrupts quietly.

‘Mhm!’

‘Why?’

‘Because I had clay? And because I was thinking about how Professor Thaddeus flew away last time we were in Nicodranas and how you said you always wanted a rat and asked for one once and – ’

‘You remember that?’

Beau asks it with the strangest breathless tone, like all the wind has been knocked out of her. It’s so strange that Jester stops her rambling to really _look_ at the other girl. Standing still, Beau has both hands cupping the statue in her palms like it is the most precious thing those hands have ever held. She isn’t looking at it though; instead, she is staring at Jester like she’s something else, something… Jester hesitates to think it but she’s seen it before, faith and something more shining out of those brilliant blue eyes. Like she’s looking at something beloved, something _divine_. Looking at her with a warmer, softer version of how she had seemed that morning they had met Artagan, like Jester is the origin of all things incredible. It feels like too much for so small of a gift but Jester knows – had known, when she thought of doing this, when she had begun to make it – that Beau has had far too few gifts sent her way. Fewer still that had no cause behind them but to make Beau happy.

‘Well, yeah!’ she says, and smiles with all the force she can muster, watches the light in Beau’s eyes grow brighter. ‘Of course, Beau.’


End file.
